The Future of Managing Mission-Critical Systems

There's no doubt the complexity of aerospace design systems is constantly increasing, driven by new demands on architecture and next-generation technologies. As a result, the costs and time associated with the creation, certification and deployment of mission-critical electronics hugely heighten if the systems are not managed in a new way.

The established approach of adopting an RTOS that can be certified in accordance with functional safety standards presents several challenges. The development and maintenance of an RTOS to meet the demanding objectives of (for example) FAA DO-178B/C DAL A is a considerable undertaking, which represents a significant investment for any system developer. The fact they are so complex means they also have substantial (and suboptimal) footprints. Functional safety standards should ideally minimize development overhead by permitting the separation of a software system into software items with the aim of placing as little of the system as possible into the more critical classes.